now Musk wants to retrieve upper stages from orbit

[WVU82_rivals]

 

[op2]

I always wondered but the upper stage. They keep saying that they land the Stage 1 rocket after they burn out and the Stage 2 rockets take over but I always then thought "Oh yeah, then what happens when the Stage 2 rockets are finished with?"

I'd be curious to know the real story of why SpaceX was the first to re-use rockets. Did nobody think of it before? Did SpaceX have some technological breakthrough to allow them to do it before anyone else figured out how? Or what? How can the Russians and Chinese be doing this for decades and they not come up with it? Or NASA and Lockheed Martin or whoever it is that builds NASAs rockets?

 

[EEResistable]

I always wondered but the upper stage. They keep saying that they land the Stage 1 rocket after they burn out and the Stage 2 rockets take over but I always then thought "Oh yeah, then what happens when the Stage 2 rockets are finished with?"

I'd be curious to know the real story of why SpaceX was the first to re-use rockets. Did nobody think of it before? Did SpaceX have some technological breakthrough to allow them to do it before anyone else figured out how? Or what? How can the Russians and Chinese be doing this for decades and they not come up with it? Or NASA and Lockheed Martin or whoever it is that builds NASAs rockets?

Private company vs public money.

 

[WVU82_rivals]

if NASA didn't spend their entire budget...

it was reduced the following year...

why would you want to reuse million dollar components ?


my bet is there have been NASA engineers with the same ideas that Musk used...

then they became fired NASA engineers....

 

[bornaneer]

I always wondered but the upper stage. They keep saying that they land the Stage 1 rocket after they burn out and the Stage 2 rockets take over but I always then thought "Oh yeah, then what happens when the Stage 2 rockets are finished with?"

I'd be curious to know the real story of why SpaceX was the first to re-use rockets. Did nobody think of it before? Did SpaceX have some technological breakthrough to allow them to do it before anyone else figured out how? Or what? How can the Russians and Chinese be doing this for decades and they not come up with it? Or NASA and Lockheed Martin or whoever it is that builds NASAs rockets?

NASA could have done it 40 years ago if they had wanted to do it. We went mainly with the shuttle approach.....the shuttle's solid rocket boosters were jettisoned, recovered,refurbished and reused.